Survivor
by Dustbunny3
Summary: [One-shot][Ellie/Riley] Ellie and Riley Wait for the change to take them.
A/N: Man, I suck at crossposting... Anyway! I wrote this for Femslash February. I'm sure I'm not the first person and surely won't be the last person to do a piece on Ellie and Riley's time spent together in the end, but I wanted to do one anyway. Writing this was smoother than I thought it would be, actually, and I'm pretty pleased with it. The only part that gave me real trouble was the ending, so any suggestions on how to improve it are welcome. Enjoy!

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They were supposed to go together, the two of them falling into the nightmare hand-in-hand when they couldn't stay awake anymore. They blocked themselves in so they wouldn't be going anywhere even when it wasn't their call anymore and sat together to wait.

For a time, there was silence, then they began to speak. They painted a picture of the life they wouldn't have together, broad strokes to hide the dark reality of what little life they had left. They talked about running away together, living off their wits and whatever means they could find. They talked about starting new, building something out of nothing.

"That would've been fucking impossible anyway," Ellie laughed through tears, interrupting Riley's description of the grand house they'd have had all to themselves.

"Everything's impossible now," Riley said back, staring into the distance and almost smiling at what she imagined she saw there. "What the hell's it matter?"

So they sketched in the details at every whim, colored with dreams and hopes and memories snatched from relics of a dead society. They argued how many dogs and what kind they would have, whether they would have cats (Riley wanted a cat, a fat, fluffy thing that would keep her feet warm when she slept; Ellie insisted she was allergic even though she'd never been close enough to a cat to know). They went through their make-believe house a room at a time, laying out the flooring and choosing the colors of the walls and arranging the furniture in turn.

"An entire room of nothing but video games consoles," Ellie mused, laying her head on Riley's shoulder and looking up into the sky turning pink with dawn.

"And every last one of them works," Riley added, pulling Ellie tight to her side to try to hide the way she'd begun to twitch.

"I have all the high scores," Ellie tried to joke, but the words caught in her throat and came out broken.

"Only the ones you don't let me play," Riley tried to joke back, but it came out more like sobbing.

Through the colors of their imagination showed reality, ugly and stark.

"Ellie," Riley said on a gasp. Her entire arm twitched, not from the infection but because she was trying to hold Ellie close and let go of her at the same time. "Ellie, get the gun."

"What?"

"I–" she gasped again and this time she wrenched away, folding in on herself, tucking in her limbs like she was sheathing a weapon. "I think I'm going first. Don't–" she cried out, keened. "D-don't let me– don't let me hurt you, Ellie. I don't know if I'll still be in there or not but for Christ's sake don't make me see me fucking hurt you."

"Riley, no," Ellie urged, grabbing Riley by the shoulders and trying to make her look her in the eyes. She felt sick, but it was the same kind of sickness she'd felt when she saw the bite; she wasn't ready yet. It couldn't be time, she thought. She tried to put a competitive edge in her voice when she said, "Come on, I hardly even feel it yet."

"Then get the fucking gun," Riley ordered through grit teeth, curling tighter still. "For me. Ellie, please."

"I can't," Ellie insisted, never taking her eyes off of Riley even as she picked up the gun in shaking hands. The world was a mess of blurs through her tears, distorted enough to look almost normal. "I can't do this by myself, Riley. Please, don't go. That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry, Ellie," Riley panted into her knees. "I'm so sorry. This wasn't supposed to happen. This isn't– this isn't what I fucking wanted."

"Keep talking to me," Ellie pleaded. "Just a little longer. Please, just– our house. With th-the game room and the big yard and all the dogs and-and your fucking bastard cat–"

"Don't you talk about my cat that way," Riley managed to quip.

"Stop me, why don't you," Ellie said, seizing on the topic. "Fucking fluffball, getting fur all over everything."

"He's hypoallergenic."

"Long-hairs aren't hypoallergenic, asshole."

"How would you know?"

Ellie didn't know, honestly, not for sure. Relief slacked her grip and she cried in a way that was almost like laughing and said, "Fine, no shedding, but he's still a lazy little shit."

"He's old," Riley protested; the tremors ebbed, just a little. "I saved him out of a tree when his arthritis acted up."

"He's a lazy little shit and he hogs your attention."

"You're worse than he is– I give you the most attention and you still want more."

"I want all of it," Ellie whispered, throat so tight she could hardly breathe. Still, she didn't feel the change coming upon her. "Anything you have you can give me, I want it."

Riley finally looked up, tears and snot smeared across the miserable look on her face. She said, "I want to give it to you. I wanted… That's what I wanted." Then she cried out, curling up again and chanting, "The gun, the gun, the gun, Ellie, do you have it? Do you–?"

"W-what about security?" Ellie asked in desperation. Survival instinct had her hands tight on the gun as a guttural growl rose deep from Riley's chest, but still she stayed her trigger finger. "Just a little longer, please, Riley, I'm not ready for it yet. T-tell me about the security at our place, how do we keep us and all the dogs and your fucking cat from getting torn apart by infected?"

Riley sobbed, growled, sobbed harder. She rocked back and forth, pressed into as tight a ball as she could make herself. When she answered, it was almost lost in her crying.

"There are none," she forced past an inhuman sound. "There are no infected."

She screeched a sound then that might have been Ellie's name. Faster than she should have been able to, she unwound herself and lunged. Ellie raised the gun and fired even before she screamed, shot after shot as Riley's weight fell upon her. She made herself stare into the face hanging slack above her until she was convinced it didn't look like Riley at all.

"Asshole," she whimpered, crying, dropping the gun and wrapping her arms around the body, ignoring the blood that poured and pooled on her and around her. She buried her face against Riley's shoulder, still so warm, still spasming as though with life. "What's the big idea leaving me, huh? We were supposed to… we were supposed to lose it together."

Ellie lay and cried as the body turned cold and stiff on top of her, not letting go. She shivered as the rising sun stroked golden fingers over them, over her alone, and waited for the change to claim her too.

When darkness fell again, it was realization that took her instead, confused and elated and horrified and angry. Like a sleepwalker, she finally pushed the body aside and stood; she found that her tears had run dry when she took apart their blockade and forced herself to leave without looking back. It wasn't the way things were supposed to be, but it was the way they were, so she checked her gun, braced herself and walked out into the night with weight enough for both of them on her shoulders.


End file.
